Objection: Ideas appear in a causal sequence. If ideas are mere superficial appearances without internal parts, what is the purpose of the complicated causal sequence in which they appear? It would be less effort for objects to appear as ideas with simple exterior surfaces, without so many internal connections. Answer: Scientists should not explain things as though they are effects of causes.
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Lengthy traditional narratives tend to have an episodic or picaresque character. Their unity comes mainly from the presence of a continuing central character or from a causal sequence of events, rather than from any overall theme, plot, or narrative purpose.
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To be an object of study and analysis, time must be transformed into a causal sequence, and the only way this can be done is by narration.Peter Munz, “The historical narrative,” in Companion to Historiography, ed. M. Bentley (London: Routledge, 1997), 870. As a form of description, narrating inevitably requires sequencing in time.
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Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars (OUP 2000) p. ix-x This style allowed him to compare the achievements and downfalls of each emperor using various examples of imperial responsibilities, such as building projects and public entertainment. However, it makes dating aspects of each emperor's life and the events of the early Roman Empire difficult. It also completely removes the ability to extrapolate a causal sequence from the works.
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The correct operation of a QDI circuit requires that events be limited to monotonic digital transitions. Instability (glitch) or interference (short) can force the system into illegal states causing incorrect/unstable results, deadlock, and circuit damage. The previously described cyclic structure that ensures stability is called acknowledgement. A transition `T1` acknowledges another `T2` if there is a causal sequence of events from `T1` to `T2` that prevents `T2` from occurring until `T1` has completed.
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After the fight, infuriated at his loss, Poseidon sent a monstrous flood to the Attic Plain, to punish the Athenians for not choosing him. The depression made by Poseidon's trident and filled with salt water was surrounded by the northern hall of the Erechtheum, remaining open to the air. "In cult, Poseidon was identified with Erechtheus," Walter Burkert noted; "the myth turns this into a temporal-causal sequence: in his anger at losing, Poseidon led his son Eumolpus against Athens and killed Erectheus."Burkert 1983, pp.
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It is also clear that a doctor's inability to save the life of a victim who is already moribund or dying is not a novus actus interveniens. Whether the withdrawal of a life-support system by a medical practitioner may be regarded as a novus actus arose in S v Williams, where it was held that such medical conduct did not break the causal sequence set in motion by Williams, who had shot the deceased, thereby inflicting those initial wounds on the deceased which had necessitated her being put on the respirator in the first place. Within 48 hours, she had been pronounced brain-dead, and the respirator duly disconnected. When Williams was tried for her murder, he claimed that he had not been the cause of her death; it was, rather, the conduct of the doctors in disconnecting the respirator.
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In S v Tembani,2007 (1) SACR 355 (SCA). it was held that the deliberate infliction of an intrinsically dangerous wound, from which the victim was likely to die without medical intervention, must generally lead to liability for an ensuing death, whether or not the wound was readily treatable, and even if the medical treatment given later was substandard or negligent—unless the victim had so recovered that at the time of the negligent treatment the original injury no longer posed a danger to his life. There is one situation in which an intervening act or event that would ordinarily qualify as a novus actus interveniens will not be regarded as such. This occurs when the intervening act or event was actually planned, intended or foreseen by the accused, in the sense that it was a calculated part of the causal sequence.
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